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TOKYO : The US point man on North Korea said on Monday it was uncertain whether a banking row could be resolved in time to meet this week's deadline in a breakthrough aid-for-disarmament deal.
Envoy Christopher Hill started a three-nation regional tour amid intense US diplomacy ahead of Saturday's deadline, which Japan and China have both publicly doubted can be met.
North Korea pledged in a six-nation deal in February to shut down its key Yongbyon nuclear facility and allow the return of UN nuclear inspectors by April 14 in return for badly needed fuel aid.
But the communist state has refused to move until it receives US$25 million of its money which was unfrozen from a Macau bank but has taken time to work its way to Pyongyang.
Despite efforts by US Treasury officials to iron out what they called "technical, banking issues," Hill declined to predict whether a breakthrough can be reached.
"It is hard to say. We have really worked hard with Macau authorities, with the Beijing government, also with the DPRK (North Korea)," Hill told reporters after meeting with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro Sasae.
"I think we have a way forward. We have to see if it will work. We will know in the next couple of days how we do on that," he said.
Asked whether he saw a need to push back the original deadline, Hill said: "We want to keep that plan intact. But we have to see if we can get through this financial issue."
Under the agreement reached after painstaking negotiations, North Korea has to shut down and seal its nuclear reactor and other facilities at Yongbyon by April 14 and invite in UN inspectors in exchange for an initial 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
But Pyongyang has insisted on first seeing the money from the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, which was frozen on US charges the account was linked to money-laundering and counterfeiting.
North Korea boycotted the six-nation talks for 10 months over the issue during which it tested an atom bomb.
An official from China, North Korea's main ally, played down the significance of the deadline.
"I don't think there is any change in the overall framework or direction. The six parties have all agreed on the first steps," Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wang Yi told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
"We are running out of time due to technical reasons over the financial issue. I think the US and North Korea are making efforts to seek a resolution to this matter," Wang said.
US President George W. Bush's administration has promoted the North Korea deal as a foreign policy success at a time of growing public dissatisfaction over Iraq.
As Hill started his visit to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, a bi-partisan team headed by former UN ambassador Bill Richardson was holding talks in Pyongyang, officially to recover the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War.
Hill said the fundamental problem remained not the banking, but North Korea's nuclear drive.
"The problem has been that because North Korea has been engaged in weapons programmes and engaged in financing these programmes that we have this problem of moving finances through the international financial system," Hill said after arriving at Narita airport near Tokyo.
"Frankly, I think the North Koreans would find the international financial system a lot more hospitable if they were not making weapons of mass destruction," he said.
The six-way talks group host China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. - AFP/de
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